2/3 cup light brown sugar (or 2/3 cup white sugar + 1 tbsp molasses)
1 large egg, room temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger (optional)
orange zest of 2 medium oranges
2 tbsp orange juice (from ~1 medium orange)
white sugar for garnish (optional)
8+ oz semi-sweet chocolate
kosher salt for garnish (optional)
Recipe
Cream butter & sugar, then add the egg & vanilla extract, keep mixing at high for a bit.
In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, cinnamon, ginger. Then, slowly incorporate into the wet ingredients. You should get a pretty moist dough.
Add 2/3rd of the orange zest, and the orange juice into the dough, continue mixing.
Split the dough into two, rolling each into an 8 inch log & then wrapping with saran wrap. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours, upto a few days.
Preheat an oven to 350F. Roll each a log in coarse sugar, then cut into 12 pieces, and top with remaining orange zest. Bake on a large baking sheet, lined with baking paper. The cookies will spread a little, so keep them a couple inches apart.
Bake for 13-14 minutes, you should notice slight browning of the edges. Let the cookies cool on a wire rack.
Chop & melt chocolate in the microwave, then half-dip cooled cookies in. Sprinkle sea salt on the chocolate half.
Notes
Makes 24 cookies
In practice it only takes ~6oz of chocolate to half-coat the cookies, but it’s pretty hard to dip them without a surplus of chocolate. You might want to try using a spoon or spatula to coat them instead.
You could experiment with fully covering the cookies with chocolate instead too.